Nagpur: India No.1 Koneru Humpy and China’s top-seeded Grandmaster Lei Tingjie won their respective opening games to take the lead in the quarterfinals of the FIDE Women’s Chess World Cup in Batumi, Georgia, on Saturday.While Humpy and Tingjie registered victories in contrasting fashion, the battle of Indian compatriots between Divya Deshmukh and Harika D was the most peaceful game in the last eight stage of the seven-round tournament, from where the top three finishers will qualify for the Women’s Candidates.Vaishali Rameshbabu continued to play lengthy games and got success in holding China’s World No.8 Tan Zhongyi in a marathon 72-move contest. A day after both Divya and Harika played some exhausting tiebreak games, both the India No.2 and No.4 tried no tricks on the board in their opening classical format clash to sign the peace treaty in just 31 moves. Though Divya missed a chance to utilise her opening advantage with white pieces, it will br advantage Harika in the second game on Sunday as she would look to make an impact with some fine opening preparations.Divya chose the Ruy Lopez Opening, while Harika opted for the Morphy Defense. Both the players didn’t make any notable moves, and the game remained equal from the start. The three-pawn rook endgame with Divya’s knight and Harika’s bishop concluded without any drama. On Sunday, Divya will need to defend with black pieces, with Harika having a slight edge. Harika said, “I didn’t want to let Divya get something from the opening. I just tried to go with the flow. Of course, I prepared, but nothing came forward.”India’s most experienced GM and world No.5 Humpy utilised her opening advantage with white pieces well to get the better of China’s 19-year-old IM Yuxin Song in an entertaining 53-move English Opening game.The Chinese youngster surprised Humpy in the midgame with some notable moves on the 11th and 16th turns. Humpy remained composed throughout and made the most of Song’s 18th move blunder of castling on the wrong side to take a slight edge. On the 22nd turn, Humpy went a rook up but had to sacrifice the same on the next move following Song’s likely attack with her bishop and queen.By the next 10 moves, Humpy took control of the proceedings by going two pawns up, utilising her knight. After the exchange of queens in the 36th move, Humpy enjoyed an upper hand with a knight, rook and two extra pawns, while Song had a rook and bishop. When Humpy started advancing her pawns with a well-positioned rook, Song resigned on the 53rd move.Earlier, China’s top seed Lei Tingjie outclassed Georgia’s Nana Dzagnidze in an English Opening game in 40 moves to join Humpy in the lead.The 2481 Elo Vaishali was the last to finish. Though she failed to utilize her opening advantage with the white pieces, Vaishali earned a succesfull draw against China’s higher-ranked 2546 Elo Tan. The Giuoco Piano Game remained equal till the 22nd turn when Vaishali played a dubious move that forced her to lose a rook on the 33rd turn. By the 38th move the end game arrived with Vaishali’s bishop with extra pawn and Tan’s rook. Though the Chinese tried many tricks to get an edge, Vaishali fought splendidly for over two hours as Tan started repetition and both finally signed peace treaty on the 72nd turn.
